the soup

Wherein E! Is Temporarily Hijacked By Defamer’s Ghetto Broadcast Standards

8:30AM Seth | We’re not going to lie: Seeing The Soup run our footage of Brooke Hogan drawing a blank on the name “Sarah Palin” on the VMAs red carpet was a real thrill. Enhancing that thrill was knowing E! was temporarily held hostage by our shaky Nikon Coolpix camera work and audio that sounded like it was piped in via two baked bean tins strung together with twine. [The Soup] After Ellen and Portia’s wedding video melted all our troubles away, we were ready for another slice of gay wedding cake. Beam us up a piece, Scottie! [Daily Mail] Here’s a shot of Ben Affleck from the set of Mike Judge’s flower-extract-factory comedy (hey—we just work here) Extract, looking as though you could wring a few powerful drops of Jesus Extract from his hair. [Just Jared] Canadians got the Zack and Miri Enjoy the Pleasures of Reciprocal Oral Sex poster, while all we get is a couple stick figures. They don’t even have stick genitalia! [/Film] Ben Silverman admitted to reporters at the New York Television Festival that the head of HR at his network refers to him as “the Paris Hilton of NBC.” He then pulled out a recorder, and spoke: “Memo to self: Ben Silverman’s My New BFF. Needs a sidekick and catchphrase. Have assistant see if Jessica Simpson and ‘So much much’ are available.” [broadcastingandcable.com]

In the Name of the Sisterhood, Blake Lively Forgives America Ferrera Her Eye-Roll

3:20AM Defamer Hollywood | It was the eye-roll heard around the world (yes, you can hear an eye-roll — it sounds like a faint, wet “oh snap”): while doing a Good Day LA interview to promote Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2, America Ferrera looked alternately bored and incredulous as costar Blake Lively nattered on about upcoming plotlines on Gossip Girl. The open mocking of the CW drama (without a single, hasty addendum of, “But it’s a guilty pleasure!”) sent New York’s media world reeling, desperate to protect the scrappy little show that it had clutched to its bosom for so long. To that end, EW dispatched Michael Ausiello to corner Lively in an attempt to determine whether the actress now harbored anti-America sentiment: More »

Five Alternatives For the New ‘Bleep Photo’ Revolutionizing TV Censorship

6:50AM STV | A momentous trend apparently began last week in the least likely of places: The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, where the hosts introduced a new “Bleep Photo” feature for particularly saucy and immodest guests. The test drive came Aug. 13 when, while interviewing a pair of women about their ambivalence toward binge-drinking, producers cut out of nowhere to a photograph of a cat eating spaghetti. It was a Random TV Moment For the Ages, rivaling David Letterman’s greatest for sheer “WTF”-ness and cultural import. The blip has since been parsed in a variety of formats including FishBowl LA, where it was discovered Monday that the cutaway was merely a “Bleep Photo” to override one of the women’s descriptions of being “fucked up.” More »